Grove Champion's car from the PC game "Interstate 76." The car has been modified with armor plating; top mounted 50 cal. Machine Gun and 25mm Cannon, as well as rear flame thrower and landmine dropper. It has been much improved from my original version, (hence why it gets its own page) and not just in the paint job.

About this creation

Disclaimer: I don't know for sure what year this car is, the one in the game is only roughly based on the real thing. The back of the box said it was a 1972, but the manual says it is a 1971, but after doing some research I think it looks more like the 1970 so I don't know what to think!

At first glance it just looks like I fixed up the paint job, but I did much, much more then that.

The Mod Garage (What I changed): Got all the yellow out of the paint job - Added the side racing stripes - Added exterior and interior Door handles as well as window rollers - Added side tail pipes - Added decals for racing numbers, model logo, and Vanity Plate - Redesigned front bumper - Improved 50cal M gun - Made black stripes on hood and trunk more accurate - Moved up the engine - Probably more that I forgot.

Features :
Opening doors, trunk, hood, and a detailed engine (well, as far as Minifig scale goes). This car has my best interior to date, including the steering wheel, seats, handbrake, gear shift, interior and exterior door handles (new!), cranks for the windows (new!), and the “Tyler-Barnett - TB525 Limited Edition Vigilante Instrument Suite (VIS)” (yes, I stole that from the manual), Which is the radar, and the vehicle damage/ammo indicator hanging from the ceiling (though the damage and ammo indicator isn’t that great on the LEGO model, but I used the closest piece I could find). But all that wouldn't do much good in combat (though you can always do a drive buy, I76 stile, after all, the game came out months before even the first GTA!) so it has 640 pounds of armor plating and reinforcement to the chassis. All that armor makes it a good for carrying VIPs but it would be nothing without the guns and other weapons mounted to the car. I even went as far as to add the tank for the flamethrower and Landmines for the dropper in the trunk, (The game never said they were in the trunk but where else would they go?!?)

About the game:
A-W-E-S-O-M-E-! and that’s the understatement of the century, or last century a guess, the game is from 1997 (though the version I have with the expansion pack and better graphics is from 98).
Game play:
In a nut shell “Interstate 76” is a game where you go around in an armor plated car with guns mounted on it and blow stuff up. When you start to hear the description of “Interstate 76” your first thought is probably “Twisted Metal.” Well other then the ‘guns on cars part’ the game is nothing like “Twisted metal,” you see “Interstate 76” is less of a ‘car combat game’ and more of a ‘car combat simulator.’ There is no power ups or crummy health bar in I76, if you run out of ammo mid mission, too bad, you’re out of luck. Your car also takes location specific damage in the game, if you take a missile to your left side, it will damage your left side and so your armor will be weakened only there. If you are going on a mission where you are chased my some one, just rearrange some of your armor so that more of it is on the rear of your car instead of the front/sides. The game is much like a flight simulator, except with cars, it has so many controls, literally at least half the keys on the keyboard are used to play the game, and it has one of the best behind the wheel views of any video game I have ever played.
Story:
I76 takes place in an alternate version of the year 1976, it’s a little like Mad Max in a way where Gas is scarce and criminals roam freely. Except in this most the police are corrupt and have been bought off so the law enforcement is done by vigilantes. The game fallows Grove Champion (CB code name: Swinger), the brother of Jade Champion (Vixen) who was killed after the games antagonist got tired of her trying to play detective and figure out what he was up to. Grove inherits his sister’s car and her mission: to figure out what Antonio Malochio is up to and stop him. The story is really nice, with quite a bit of subtle humor, but I can't really tell much about it without giving spoilers.

Pictures:

Grove Champion: or the best rendering of him I could do.

The 50cal and 25mm
I have done much improvement to the 50cal, looks much more authentic to the game now. The 25mm really looks more like a 20mm, I think. In the past I have always used that barrel for 20mm cannons but anything else would be too big.

Bottom view:
Added new side tail pipes.

I made the plate in MS Paint, then shrunk it to size in word. A 1976 Texas Vanity plate: "Charlie - Henry - Adam - Mary - Paul" (CHAMP). The Car name says 'Ranha like it does in the game instead of Piranha as the car is actually called. It is very funny that my printer actually made them in higher resolution then they were on the screen of my ancient lap top (I couldn't read the 19 - 76 on my computer once I shrunk it, lol)!

The door:
Featuring Handles on the inside and out as well as cranks to open and close the windows (I went a little crazy adding detail).

Openable parts:

The engine:
I kept this pretty much the same as on the original, but I managed to move it up farther, before it was too far back.

The trunk:
You can see the landmines as well as the tank for the rear flamethrower.

In car view (sorta):

Interior shot:

Clean:
Again, this is just for any one out there who wanted to see it without any Boom-Booms mounted to it. :P

Final Pic:
I really like how this came out, for the most part it was just the flash from my PowerShot A610, it took a few tries, but all I had to do was add the smoke and muzzle flash (which was really hard, I had never used paint before this MOC, and am not good at gun shots anyway).

If any of you have never played Interstate 76 I would at least recommend watching some gameplay videos of it, if not buying it entirely. www.gog.com (Good Old Games) has it with the expansion pack for $5 so don’t say you don’t have the money.

The future:
Put a Flux Capacitor in it, wait what?!? No, OK...

I am pretty happy with how this came out, it looks much better then it did before. The front is amazing, I would like to make the racing stripe not get wider at the tip of the hood, but other then that its good. The back needs some work, the realy thing doesn't really slope down at all in the back, but I can't change it with out making the taillights look too low. I have a few concepts, but all of which involve getting some 1x1 headlight bricks in orange which I currently have none of as well as 1x1 orange plates which I ran are all used in other places.

Am am also not completely happy with the stickers, the License plate looks amazing, but the sticker sheets I have are white so black doesn't come out quite right, but I am glad that I at least have sticker sheets now. I hope to reprint the stickers (other then the License plate), in higher quality and make the numbers 432 bigger. I also want to make a sticker of the radar and damage indicators from the game.

My Grove Fig also needs work, but I'm not willing to try painting the head to make it more accurate yet (LEGO doesn't make a light skinned African American head with silver Aviators and a blond stash, even after market I doubt I could find that).

Interstate 76, the only game in history with a "poem" button!
That's right, if you press the 'C' key, your mentor "Torus" will tell you a poem over the CB radio! The game has about 40 of them.

Update:

The new front
I love how this came out, don't think any one has ever tried this approach on a Plymouth Barracuda before. The only think I don't like is how the grill separator sticks out less now, but I guess that is more faithful to the game since the whole grill and headlights where completely flat due to the 1997 graphics limitations.

Update: (Two hours later)
I modified it again, the grill and stuff is still the same, but changed some parts on the hood to make it look better, it no longer has that did in the middle and has a smother look altogether.

Quoting TheLegoNoitAll .
i like how much detail you managed to put in a 8 wide (don't be mad if i'm incorrect) and i am certainly amazed my the interior and engine details managed for this scale (many 16 wide interior doesn't look this detailed) :)

Must have missed this comment, sorry. Glad to finally get a comment like this, I'm usaily commenting on 5 and 6 wides that have more detail then my 8! I actually have a newer version of this car now with even more detail.

i like how much detail you managed to put in a 8 wide (don't be mad if i'm incorrect) and i am certainly amazed my the interior and engine details managed for this scale (many 16 wide interior doesn't look this detailed) :)

Quoting Builder Allan
Brilliant detailing! You may feel you went overboard with that but the end result is very impressive.
Excellent color scheme too. That will look really cool once you get hold of the final parts.
I don't know the shape of the car you were aiming for but to me this shape actually looks a whole lot like an old version of the opel kadett :-D Still great work though!

Thanks, the car is a Plymouth Barracuda, but Activision didn't have the rights to car names so the made up there own car companies (like, Jefferson and Phord, lol!) The back on the real think is flat, mine slopes down, but it took me until I finished the V2 before I noticed so I'm not to worried about it.

Brilliant detailing! You may feel you went overboard with that but the end result is very impressive.
Excellent color scheme too. That will look really cool once you get hold of the final parts.
I don't know the shape of the car you were aiming for but to me this shape actually looks a whole lot like an old version of the opel kadett :-D Still great work though!